The state of nature points beyond itself to the establishment of civil government. Indeed, government is the ever-present latent possibility coursing through Locke's account of the state of nature. However, while the state of nature clearly ascribes to the individual the status of primary unit of political analysis, the moral principles flowing from natural freedom and equality provide no obvious explanation as to how government comes into being or how it should be constituted. The only theoretical prerequisite that Locke's state of nature places on the origin of government is that it presupposes the centrality of the idea of consent: Naturally free and equal beings who logically have no natural rulers can only be governed rightfully by individuals or institutions to whom they have consented to be ruled.

In order to understand more fully the relationship between the state of nature and civil government in Locke's political theory, we need to begin by locating the phenomenon of government in the context of Locke's way of ideas. Government is, by virtue of its eidetic character, a prime example of a Lockean mixed mode for it is an idea that can exist as an intelligible idea independently from the material and logical reality of the state of nature. The intellectual materials of government pre-exist its actual establishment; indeed, the logical coherence of Locke's state of nature theory depends on the possibility that some individuals can in principle conceive of civil government on the same basis that we can understand moral ideas like adultery or homicide without ever having seen a government or of living under civil rule.